23536
Bluelight Crew
Russia is facing international condemnation for its failure to deal with its catastrophic drugs problem which is in turn fuelling an epidemic of HIV and AIDS.
Ahead of thus Sunday's International AIDS Conference in Washington, a briefing paper has been released to show that Russia and the Ukraine have the fastest growing HIV rates in the world. The figures are stark: in the Russian federation, more than one third (37per cent) of the country's 1.8m injecting drug users have HIV.
In 2010 injecting drug users accounted for 78 per cent of all HIV cases. A decade ago 100,000 people were HIV positive in Russia. Now it is over one million.
According to an International AIDS Society report, the standards of drug treatment are outdated and do not conform to recognised standards.
Indeed, the UN, the World Health Organisation, the European council, 60 countries, including all of Europe, recognise methadone replacement and needle exchange programmes as the best method of harm reduction - the optimum way of preventing death and the spread of disease. Both are banned in Russia.
So people are dying from drugs and AIDS. It is no longer just about heroin either. That has been harder to get lately following crackdowns by the police and since the trail from Afghanistan diverted down through Africa.
Instead there in a new, even more frightening drug around. Called krokodil, or desamorphine, it is a combination of pharmaceutical opiate-based drugs, iodine, petrol and hydrochloric acid, mixed up on the stove at home and injected.
It is a drug so toxic that it hardens the skin, turning it irreparably scaly - thus the name. Then it rots the flesh, damages the brain and finally kills its users usually within about two years.
full http://www.channel4.com/news/russia-condemned-for-its-futile-fight-against-aids
Ahead of thus Sunday's International AIDS Conference in Washington, a briefing paper has been released to show that Russia and the Ukraine have the fastest growing HIV rates in the world. The figures are stark: in the Russian federation, more than one third (37per cent) of the country's 1.8m injecting drug users have HIV.
In 2010 injecting drug users accounted for 78 per cent of all HIV cases. A decade ago 100,000 people were HIV positive in Russia. Now it is over one million.
According to an International AIDS Society report, the standards of drug treatment are outdated and do not conform to recognised standards.
Indeed, the UN, the World Health Organisation, the European council, 60 countries, including all of Europe, recognise methadone replacement and needle exchange programmes as the best method of harm reduction - the optimum way of preventing death and the spread of disease. Both are banned in Russia.
So people are dying from drugs and AIDS. It is no longer just about heroin either. That has been harder to get lately following crackdowns by the police and since the trail from Afghanistan diverted down through Africa.
Instead there in a new, even more frightening drug around. Called krokodil, or desamorphine, it is a combination of pharmaceutical opiate-based drugs, iodine, petrol and hydrochloric acid, mixed up on the stove at home and injected.
It is a drug so toxic that it hardens the skin, turning it irreparably scaly - thus the name. Then it rots the flesh, damages the brain and finally kills its users usually within about two years.
full http://www.channel4.com/news/russia-condemned-for-its-futile-fight-against-aids
Last edited:
.